The Sunni guerrillas want a timetable for a US withdrawal, first from Iraqi cities and then from the country as a whole. American officials aim to see if they can drive a wedge between nationalist guerrillas and fanatical Islamist groups.

Abu Marwan, a resistance commander, is quoted as saying that the insurgents want to "fight and negotiate". They are modelling their strategy on that of the IRA and Sinn Fein in Northern Ireland. This means creating a united political organisation with a programme opposed to the US occupation.

US military commanders are now dubious about the chances of winning an outright military victory over the Sunni rebels who have a firm core of supporters among the five million-strong Sunni Muslim community. The US military has lost 1,479 dead and 10,740 wounded in Iraq since the invasion began in March 2003.

The talks so far are tentative but they indicate a recognition on the part of the US that it will need a political solution. Those willing to sit down with US diplomats and officials are "nationalists" composed primarily of former military and security officers from Saddam's Hussein's government.

The Iraqi resistance is highly fragmented and regionalised. Groups often only exist in a single city. In guerrilla warfare this may be an advantage since no command structure can be penetrated or disrupted.

The schismatic and regionalised development of the resistance has been its greatest weakness to date. Without a defined political programme that enables it to make a broad appeal, it has been calumniated by every vicious attack on civilians mounted by the likes of Tawhid wal Jihad. There is a slight analogy with the anticapitalist movement here, in which the majority were slandered because of the actions of the Black Bloc, which many in the movement believe is packed with far rightists and police provocateurs anyway. Because fragmented, without any unifying structure, any group of idiots calling themselves anti-capitalist can ruin a decent protest. Similarly, although TwJ are a sectarian group whose main aim is to start a Sunni-Shia war, although its attacks constitute a tiny fragment of the total; although most resistance attacks have targeted troops, Bradley tanks and so on - it has been possible because of the disgusting acts of these tiny outlying groups to impugn the whole resistance.

The fact that a bunch of former Ba'athist military officers are trying to place themselves at the fore-front of a regionalised grass-roots resistance is another symptom of this. True, there does need to be a unified nationalist resistance with a defined political programme: but if it is seen as a vehicle for the re-emergence of Ba'athism, it can never win. Similarly, it is unsurprising that those most eager to chat with the US are their former allies, the ones who must have mourned Reagan's death and still wonder why Rumsfeld is no longer picking up the phone.

As it is, the grass-roots resistance has shown itself capable both of independence from the mukhabarat thugs who wish to hegemonise it, and of overcoming sectarian divisions. In Tel Afar, for instance, Sunni guerillas worked with Shi'a Turkmen against the US and the Kurdish peshmergas deputising on its behalf. During the April 2004 assault on Fallujah, the beseiged Sunni city was assisted by Shi'ites and Sunnis from across Iraq, who brought medical and food aid for their compatriots. They chanted, "No no Sunni, No no Shia, Yes yes Islam". In Baghdad, Sunnis and Shias filled the Sunni Amm al-Qura mosque, while 200,000 gathered in Baghdad for a demonstration against the assault.

However, while the election boycott in Sunni areas seriously damaged the credibility of the vote, it also exposed the possibility of a Sunni-Shia rift. Now, some Sunni leaders see participation in the political process, along with Shi'ites as their best hope for ending the occupation. If they succeed in forcing a US withdrawal from key cities, they may have won half that battle already, but that is a massive 'if'. It is also doubtful whether the participation of a section of the Ba'athist elite in government, locally or nationally, will stop the resistance when the occupying troops provide such ample grist for its mill every day. Finally, it is worth bearing in mind that the bulk of the resistance is Islamist-nationalist rather than Ba'athist, composed of those who would have opposed Saddam. Just as it was an Islamist movement that kicked the US and then Israel out of Lebanon, it is probably just such groups who will continue to come to the fore in militarily opposing the occupation.